Friday, June 27, 2008

Mind your language!

IBM launches Hindi speech recognitionWith proposed investments of $6 billion in India, IBM would surely want to have more associations with the country other than the colour blue. No wonder that it has partnered with Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), to come out with a Desktop Hindi Speech Recognition Technology. This technology, also called Shrutlekhan- Rajbhasha has been developed in association with the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing. This technology transcribes spoken Hindi language with little assistance from the user through keyboards. It would therefore help people with limited computer literacy & also the physically challenged. Needless to add, this technology would also find many suitors in the domain of domestic call centres of various banks, telecom companies, airlines and even Indian Railways to assist them in performing better. Dr. Daniel Dias, Director, IBM India Research Laboratory, said, “The system can recognise more than 75,000 Hindi words with dialectical variations, providing an accuracy level of 90-95%.” IBM also claims it has tested this technology on people across states without a significant effect on accuracy. It also comes in with spell check function to help correct spoken errors. IBM’s transcription technology would certainly prove a catalyst in the mass penetration of PCs in India, already in the acceleration mode. And to top it all, it would also help Big Blue develop a formidable association with the Hindi speaking hinterland.